An introduction to what never was…
This material is a slight abridgment of
material that was originally written OVER
30 YEARS AGO, as the forward to a bibliography of the publications of the
Watchtower Society. I amassed a wealth of material, but the project never saw
the light of the day. I tend to be a good starter, but not a good finisher.
However, all the research was freely passed onto others who enquired, so it
didn’t get wasted. More recent compilers like Stan Milosevic in Canada have
produced useful works like Watchtower Publications Valuations Guide. I wouldn’t
necessarily concur with all the valuations, but apart from not listing all the Bible Student Monthly tracts (under
their three mastheads) it is quite comprehensive.
It was hidden away on my hard drive
(through various computers) for decades, and only rediscovered by accident in a
long overdue “clear out” of dead files. I would normally have consigned it to
oblivion again, but noted that there are some snippets of history in it - about
strange booklets, Angels and Women,
Rutherford’s Ecclesiastical Heavens
booklet, amongst others, and also some comments on attitudes of the time
(largely superseded in modern times I am pleased to note). So, as a filler, I
am letting it see the surprising light of day here. But please note that it was
written just after the Watchtower Society’s 1990 index was produced, but before
the Proclaimers book was released in
1993, so is a time capsule of the early 1990s. It also uses the expression “the
Society” quite often, whereas modern nomenclature favors the expression “the
organization.”
Introduction to “Watch Tower
Publications - A Celebration”
One of the problems with introductions
is that very few people ever bother to read them, preferring to skip straight
into the body of the work, in this case what is to date the most comprehensive
bibliography of the publications of the Watchtower Society.
To understand what follows, and why
certain things are included (or excluded) and the basic purpose of this volume
a few minutes reading what follows will not be wasted.
The basis for the work
The basic starting point for this work
is the organization's own bibliographies – the most detailed of which to date
was recently published in the Publications
Index 1985-90. There are a few
occasions where this work will change categories slightly – e.g. the difference
between a booklet or a brochure – but the organization's listing is closely
followed otherwise.
However, the current work is designed
to ADD a lot of detail not available before.
Many tracts for example are not listed
at all in the Society's bibliography, or if they are, just the title of the
series, e.g., Bible Students Monthly. Yet
that was a series of over 100 different four page tracts. This work will
list them all. Then when is a tract not a tract but just a handbill or
leaflet? Both are used in mass-distribution witnessing work. This work
will include many other items that SEEM to qualify as tracts, and this of
course will be a list to which many readers could easily add.
This work proposes to catalogue some of
the ephemera, postcards, public talk handbills and outlines, forms, etc. There
is a special section on BEFORE THE WATCHTOWER, covering some pre-1879 materials
that are of interest to many collectors. There is a section on the
Society's films, with a special section on the PHOTO DRAMA OF CREATION listing
full details of the slides, moving pictures and recordings. Slides
presentations and videos are also catalogued in the audio-visual section
Why collect?
In the past, some have tended to frown
on collectors. Statements like 'You don't want to bother with that"
or 'You need to keep up-to-date" have suggested that real collectors have
somehow stayed in a time-warp, surrounded by yellowed Golden Age magazines, rarely sharing in current activities, and
more likely to have studied their Old
Theology Quarterly file than modern literature. It must be stressed of
course that browsing through history is generally NOT what most would term
“personal study,” but is a leisure activity. But if a collector turns off
the TV and rearranges the dust on old materials with care, then that is their
leisure activity, and who should criticize?
Criticisms of collecting have largely
disappeared as the organization has more and more encouraged witnesses to
collect in some shape or form old material. They did this when they republished
the Watchtower volumes back to 1951,
and then the CD-ROM material back to 1950. Their own published indexes
will take a researcher back to 1930 – there has to be an assumption that, while
the more recent references will be more used, once in a while someone really IS
going back to the 1930s. Then a book like Revelation Climax has over 40 pre-1930 references. All these
factors make collecting USEFUL, as well as enjoyable for those who are natural
collectors!
And collecting is not just the books
and magazines.
To get an insight into the flavor of
the past, the EPHEMERA of an era has a vital role throwaway material has
tremendous value decades on in recreating what it was REALLY like at the time.
The organization has naturally not kept
all its ephemera – the very nature of ephemera is that it is not valued as
permanent at the time. Although they are now far more conscious of
preserving history, even in recent times Bethel has had to rely heavily on
private collectors to supply the materials. The value of private collections
goes back a long way. When the reprint volumes were first proposed, the
troubles of 1918 had decimated their library. Those at headquarters did
not even have a complete file of magazines and had to rely on private
collectors to lend the missing issues. Private collectors of course did so and
so the project could be realized. Until recently there were four issues of
Old Theology Quarterly for which the
organization did not know the titles. Again private collectors helped fill
the gaps and supplied photocopies.
So if you are a collector you will need
no encouragement to 'save it' – who knows, one day it may prove useful. If
of course you are not a collector, then you will not be reading this anyway.
Previous attempts
There have been several previous
attempts to produce bibliographies of this material. But earlier efforts,
including the Society's own, starting with the 1930-60 Index, have contained
inaccuracies, and in some cases it appears that writers have 'invented'
publications, or at least passed on the errors of others.
A classic example is one bibliography
that lists a number of booklets that no-one has ever been able to find. The
problem can be traced back to the bibliography published by H H Stroup in his
work Jehovah’s Witnesses published
first in 1945, as an early attempt as a sociological study. Stroup quoted
extensively from the then more current works of J F Rutherford, but
unfortunately used the titles of the individual treatise rather than the titles
of the booklets. To explain, most Rutherford booklets contained a series of
titles on different subjects, the first of which became the cover title for the
whole booklet. But when Stroup quoted from a Rutherford treatise, he used the
title at the top of the page as if it were the title of the whole publication –
which generally, it wasn’t.
Here are some Stroup examples of this.
|
Stroup title in his bibliography Jehovah's Organization (1932) Hypocrisy (1932) Prophets Foretell Redemption (1932) Can American Government Endure (1933) JWs - Why Persecuted (1933) America's End (1934) Justifying War (1934) Religions (1934) Marriage (1936) Why Serve Jehovah (1936 wrong date) |
Actually a chapter within booklet: The Final War Cause of Death Good News The Crisis The Crisis Supremacy Beyond the Grave Beyond the Grave Home and Happiness Dividing the People (pub 1933) |
These mysterious missing booklets sent
many collectors off on a wild goose chase for booklets that don’t exist as such
– and some later “compilers” subsequently repeated Stroup’s error. (It
also illustrates the fact that many collectors don't actually read their
collections – if they had done so, the problem would have quickly been solved).
The Society's own bibliography first
appeared in 1960 in their 1930-1960 index. It was a start. There were many
omissions, and some anomalies such as the date 1873 for Object and Manner of Our Lord’s Return. But as noted above,
the current index is still limited. For example, what are all the titles
for Peoples Pulpit, Everybody’s Paper and Bible Students Monthly?
There are other problems to address as
well. What is an official publication and what isn't? Theoretically, the
obvious answer is when it has the name Watchtower, or IBSA, or People’s Pulpit
on the flyleaf. But it is not that simple. A number of Bible Students and
witnesses have published their own material, which has been actively circulated
by the Society or at least been given tacit approval at the time. There
have also been occasions where Society material has been published under a
different imprint. So we get publications like Angelophone Hymns from 1916. This is so obviously a Watch
Tower publication from references in the literature of the times, but was
published from a different address. Then what about Angels and Women? This
is a republication of a Victorian novel that the Society endorsed in 1924, but
published by the A.B. ABAC Company. More crucially, what about Great Battle in Ecclesiastical Heavens?
This famous booklet by J F Rutherford defending C T Russell is NOT listed as a
Watchtower publication in the latest index because the American edition was
published privately by J F Rutherford - although still
available on the official society's cost list. (Just to add to the confusion
however, the British edition WAS published by the Society). In this
latter instance we have included it as a Society publication,
whereas Rutherford's earlier work Plan of
Salvation as Seen from a Lawyer’s Viewpoint is not included as official. More
recent cases in point are works by Marley Cole and A H MacMillan. In these
cases we have made a personal decision whether to include them or not. On
most occasions we have followed the organization's decision and omitted them
from the main listing, but have included them in a special section called
FRINGE ITEMS. Such a list has to be the personal choice of this compiler, so
obviously will appear incomplete to some.
Finally, the title of this work is to
stress the expression A CELEBRATION. It is the firm belief of this
compiler that ALL the publications of the Society have done a work in their
time and all tell part of the story. For those who wish to collect the
story it is hoped this descriptive bibliography and its illustrations will be
helpful.
